Golf clubs consist of a single tapered elongated tube with a club head on one end and a grip on the other end. Between the grip and the club head is a smooth tapered elongated tube. Conventional golf club grips, which have been in use for more than fifty years, are commonly made from cord, rubber, synthetic blends or various combinations of these materials. With regular play, these grips wear out, get damaged, lose elasticity or become too soft.
When this happens, a golf club needs to be re-gripped. The re-gripping process requires cutting off the old grip with a sharp instrument, cleaning the golf club shaft with solvent, applying two-sided tape to the golf club shaft and finally, as recommended by grip manufacturers, affixing the golf club into a stationary vise and applying a solvent to the tape before slipping the grip over the end of the shaft and applying enough pressure to the grip to force it to seat tightly to the golf club shaft. Once the new grip is in place it must be adjusted to ensure that, if the new grip contains a manufactures logo, it is in alignment with the golf club and that the twist indicators are in alignment before the solvent dries.
This re-gripping process appears to be a daunting task for do-it-yourselfers. For example, virtually of all the golf club grip kits currently on the market come with a black rubber pad that is designed to fit between the jaws of a stationary vise and protect the golf club shaft from damage by the jaws of the stationary vise as the golf club shaft is firmly clamped into the stationary vise during the re-gripping process.
Many golfers do not have access to a workshop or to a stationary vise to hold the golf club steady as the new grip is applied. Therefore, golfers generally resort to having their golf clubs re-gripped by golf equipment professionals, which is usually time consuming and substantially increases the cost of re-gripping their entire set of golf clubs.